VICTORIA, vlic-tb'r1-3, queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and empress of India: b Kensington Palace, London, 24 May 1819. d. Osborne, Isle of Wight, 22 Jan. 1901. ghe was the only child of Edvrard, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. by Mary Louisa Victoria. youngest child of Francis Fredericic Antony, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and widow of Prince Ernest Charles •of Leiningen. On 24 June she was baptized by the names of Alexandrina Victoria. The reigning sovereign was George III, and there stood between her and the throne the Prince Regent, afterward George IV, the Duke of York, the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV, and her father. On 23 Jan. 1820, her father died, only nine days after the death of George III. The formal education of the princess began in 1824; her first teacher being Frattlein Lehzen, but from 1f327 the chief direction of her studies was entrusted to the Rev. George Davys, after ward bishop of Peterborough. On the death of George IV in June 1830 she became heir presumptive to the throne. She was confirmed at the Chapel Royal, Saint James, 30 July 1835, and in May of the following year she first met her future husband. The death of her uncle, William IV, 20 June 1837, raised her to the throne, nearly a month after she had attained her majority. She elected to be known by the name of Victoria. The young queen, daughter of a Whig or even Radical father, held Whig principles herself, and soon learned to place implicit confidence in Melbourne, head of dte Whig government, and to look to him for polit ical guidance. For many years she was re garded with somewhat unfriendly feelings try the Tories, but her chief favorite among the statesmen with whom she afterward came into contact was a Tory, or at least a Conservative, Benjamin Disraeli. She opened her first Parlia ment, 20 Nov. 1837. Her coronation took place in Westtninster Abbey, 28 June 1838.
On 15 Oct. 1839, Victoria was engaged to her cousin, Prince Albert, youngest son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and on 10 Feb. 1840 their marriage was solemnized in the chapel of Saint James' Palace. In July of that year a bill was passed making Prince Albert regent in case the queen should not survive her first confinement, and on 21 November her first child, the Princess Royal, was born at Buck ingham Palace. Melbourne was defeated in the House of Commons in 1841 on a vote of no confidence, and Parliament was dissolved. The Tories ixere triumphant at the polls, and Sir Robert Peel, whom the queen at first dis trusted but soon learned to like, became Pre mier. On 9 Nov.1841 a male heir to the throne, afterward Edward VII, was born at Bucking ham Palace. Victoria made her first visit to
Scotland in September 1842, and in the follow ing year she left Great Britain for the first time, to visit Louis Philippe at Eu and King Leopold at Brussels. When Peel in 1845 de termined on the repeal of the corn-laws the queen gave him her whole-hearted support. Lord John Russell formed a ministry, with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, a posi tion in which he gave her much anxiety. In 1848, the year of revolution, she made her first stay at Balmoral, which was afterward to be her residence during a large part of each year. She had already acquired Osborne, in the Isle of Wight (1844). She visited Ireland for the first time in 1&49, and on that occasion the cove of Cork, where she landed, was renamed Queenstown in her honor. In 1848 and the three following years her dislike of Palmerston's foreign policy steadily increased, but in De cember 1851, his wholly unwarranted approval of the coup d'etat in France caused Lord John Russel to remove him from office. During the period of the no-popery outcry which followed the re-establishment of Roman Catholic bishop rics in England in 1850, the queen steadily dis countenanced Protestant bigotry. Lord John Russell was defeated in 1852, and Lord Derby formed a new ministry with Disraeli as Chancel lor of the Exchequer and leader of the lower House. Derby resigned in December, and at the queen's suggestion Lord Aberdeen formed a coalition ministry, including Palmerston and Russell. During the war with Russia (1854— .56) the conduct of the queen won universal commendation. Early in 1855 Aberdeen was defeated on the question of thi. cundtv-t of ale war, and the queen was reluctantly compelled to ask Palmerston to form a ministry. The Victoria Cross, for acts of conspicuous bravery in battle, was instituted at her instance in 185& In 1857 Prince Albert was created Prince Con sort by letters patent, and in the following year Palmerston was succeeded in the premiership by Lord Derby. Victoria interfered with excellent effect in the matter of the proclamation issued to her Indian subjects in 1858, and she created the new order of the Star of India the year following the Mutiny to reward native loyalty and eminent services in that country. The elec tions of 1859 placed Derby in a minority and compelled her to accept another Palmerston Russell ministry. She at once came into con flict with them on the Italian question, in which her sympathies were with Austria. Distrust of the intentions of Napoleon III, which she fully shared, led to the foundation of the volunteer force in 1859, and in 1860 she formally inau gurated the National Rifle Association at Wim bledon.